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THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CALIFORNIA - This site is dedicated to exposing the continuing Marxist Revolution in California and the all around massive stupidity of Socialists, Luddites, Communists, Fellow Travelers and of Liberalism in all of its ugly forms.

"It was a splendid population - for all the slow, sleepy, sluggish-brained sloths stayed at home - you never find that sort of people among pioneers - you cannot build pioneers out of that sort of material. It was that population that gave to California a name for getting up astounding enterprises and rushing them through with a magnificent dash and daring and a recklessness of cost or consequences, which she bears unto this day - and when she projects a new surprise the grave world smiles as usual and says, "Well, that is California all over."

- - - - Mark Twain (Roughing It)

Saturday, April 20, 2013

More Bullet Train Corruption in California

High Speed Rail officials changed the rules to select the contractor with the lowest safety and engineering rating

Political hacks select an artificially low bid to keep the money train belching out cash for unions and businesses. The cost overruns come later.

High-speed rail officials for the People's Republic of California acknowledged Thursday that they changed their rules for selecting a builder for the bullet train’s first phase in the Central Valley, making it possible for a consortium led by Sylmar-based Tutor Perini to be ranked as the top candidate despite receiving the lowest technical rating.

The California High Speed Rail Authority announced last week that the Tutor Perini-Zachary-Parsons joint venture was the top-rated contender among five bidders seeking to build the initial 29 miles of track between Madera and Fresno.

While it offered the lowest price at $985.1 million, the Tutor Perini team’s technical score ranked last. Ferrovial and Acciona, two Spanish firms with significant high-speed rail experience, had the highest technical mark but bid almost $1.4 billion. The rail agency board is expected to select a contractor in coming months after additional negotiations reports the Los Angeles Times.

The technical score is based on safety measures, engineering, scheduling, quality of design, project approach and solutions to possible construction problems.

Under that process, the Tutor Perini consortium and another team by Skanska, a Swedish company, would have been eliminated after the first round, leaving groups led by Colorado-based Kiewit and two teams led by Spanish firms, Dragados and Ferrovial.

The High Spped Rail Board adopted the two-step process, which the agency’s staff said would create competition and obtain quality technical proposals for the first 200-mph rail system to be constructed in the United States.

The agency changed the evaluation process in July, according to an agency spokesman. The official did not provide details of the internal process used to alter the criteria. But he said the state potentially will save hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of the decision to change the evaluation criteria.

But Elizabeth Goldstein Alexis of Californians Advocating Responsible Rail Design, a group critical of the bullet train project, disagreed and argued that the change in evaluation criteria has invalidated the bidding process. “This is not a non-substantive change,” she said. “I don’t see any indication that the board approved this.”

In the end, the state placed far more weight on price than the technical evaluation (safety and engineering), which is contrary to best practices suggested by some construction industry groups. The Design Build Institute of America advises public agencies to put greater emphasis on technical merit to avoid later problems on a project.

The technical proposals could be critical. Building the first section will require a massive engineering feat on a tight schedule that includes cutting a 1.7-mile trench through Fresno, erecting a 1.2-mile viaduct and three major bridges and using giant hydraulic jacks to create a tunnel beneath California 180 in the Fresno area.

Tutor Perini is one of the largest contractors in the country. Critics have complained the firm tends to bid low to win contracts and then seeks change orders and contract amendments that increase costs.

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Paul Gann and Howard Jarvis

Declared "Public Enemies #1 of the People's Republic" for daring to be the Fathers of the modern Taxpayer Revolt in 1978 with Proposition 13 and the Gann Spending Cap. Their crime was to tell the people that they have the right to keep their own money and not turn it over to their Marxist Overlords in Government.

Governor Ronald Reagan

Declared an "Enemy of the People's Republic" for daring to balance the budget, support capitalists, oppose Socialism, create jobs and wealth.

U.S. Senator Richard Nixon

Declared an "Enemy of the People's Republic" for daring from day one in office to vigorously and effectively oppose Communism at home and around the world.

Governor Frank Merriam

Declared an "Enemy of the People's Republic" for daring to send in National Guardsmen armed and with fixed bayonets and machine guns to put down a Communist Longshoreman's strike and for defeating Socialist Upton Sinclair for Governor in 1934.

U.S. Senator George Hearst

Declared an "Enemy of the People's Republic" for daring to show initiative and walk from Missouri to California, for going into farming, business, mining (the Comstock Load), creating wealth with his bare hands out of nothing and providing jobs for the people.

Governor and Senator Leland Stanford

Declared an "Enemy of the People's Republic" for daring to Found the California Republican Party in 1856, build the Central Pacific Railroad, create jobs, businesses and wealth. Founder of Stanford University.

Governor Romualdo Pacheco

Declared an "Enemy of the People's Republic" for supporting ranchers, gold miners and the capitalist creation of wealth and jobs.

U.S. Senator John C. Fremont

Declared an "Enemy of the People's Republic" for daring to support capitalists, gold mining and fight for his country.

About Me

"Stood in firelight, sweltering. Bloodstain on chest like map of violent new continent. Felt cleansed. Felt dark planet turn under my feet and knew what cats know that makes them scream like babies in night.
Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever and we are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later. Born from oblivion; bear children, hell-bound as ourselves, go into oblivion. There is nothing else.
Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It is us. Only us.
Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them. Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world. Was Rorschach."
- - - Rorschach, Watchmen (1986)

California Gold Rush (1848 - 1855)

This was a time that is hated with a deep and seething hate by all Socialists, Communists and Statists. During the Gold Rush common men and women sought their fortunes in a new world without the benefit of the wise and learned counsel of overeducated and worthless bureaucrats. People took the task of creating raw wealth into their own hands. No intellectuals were available to lecture the workers about the wonders of the eight hour day, worker's rights, unemployment insurance, workplace rules, "fairness" or early retirement. Intellectuals were neither wanted nor needed because intellectuals do not work for a living. The Intellectual Elite exists to tell everyone how smart they are and how everyone else is doing things wrong. Early California was a place for those who worked for a living.

Central Pacific Railroad

The Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) is the former name of the railroad network built between California and Utah that formed part of the "First Transcontinental Railroad". It was rapidly built between 1863 - 1869. The "Golden spike", connecting the western railroad to the Union Pacific Railroad at Promontory, Utah, was hammered on May 10, 1869. Coast-to-coast train travel in eight days became possible, replacing months-long sea voyages and lengthy, hazardous travel by wagon trains. This project would never be built today in the Luddite People's Republic. There would be endless delays, environmental impact reports, labor unions, lawyers, court battles and Government Drones blocking every move.

Building the Golden Gate Bridge (1933 - 1937)

Financed and built by California in a record four years. The bridge ranks as one of the great wonders of the world stimulating the economy and creating endless jobs and wealth. Today it would never be built.

The People's Republic of California today

The #1 goal of the all powerful Big Brother State is the Marxist re-distribution of the wealth to the Elite so it can be used to buy votes in the next election. Today jobs and wealth are opposed by the Luddite Socialists because they claim it creates an un-equal society. Modern Californians are living off everything that was built by their ancestors. New projects that might create wealth are furiously opposed by an endless stream of Luddite-Leftist interest groups.

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